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April 1, 2011

CNN Money’s Steve Hargreaves explained to Randi Kaye the cost of a U.S. nuclear meltdown and who would be responsible to pay for it. Go the the CNN site to view the video.

March 25, 2011

By Steve Hargreaves, senior writer
CNNMoney

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Aside from the human toll a worst-case scenario nuclear reactor meltdown would cause, American taxpayers could also be stuck paying hundreds of billions in damages. But the industry would only be on the hook for a tiny fraction of that — even if it was to blame.

Under current law, the utilities that operate nuclear power plants are responsible for a fund that pays the first $12.6 billion in damages and lawsuits resulting from any incident.

"This thing is obviously not going to cover the costs of any major accident," said a spokesman for Massachusetts Democrat Rep. Ed Markey, who has long served on the House committee overseeing nuclear power, referring to the $12.6 billion fund. "That means the U.S. taxpayer will be left on the hook for the rest of it."

A 1982 study from Sandia National Laboratories, commissioned for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the consequences of a nuclear meltdown would be catastrophic. The disaster could cause 50,000 fatalities and $314 billion in property damage.

In today’s money, that’s $720 billion.

The government gave the nuclear industry the liability cap in 1957 to entice the private sector into building nuclear power plants. The original cap was even smaller than the $12.6 billion — it has been adjusted upward to account for inflation.

Building nuclear plants was effort to boost homegrown energy and showcase the peaceful uses of a technology that had previously only been used for war — known as "Atoms for Peace." Without it, it’s doubtful the private sector would have built nuclear power plants at all.

A worst case scenario would have bankrupted a company, said Winfred Colbert, an energy and environmental attorney at the Houston office of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease. "They would not have gotten into it," Colbert said.

The act that created the cap, known as Price-Anderson, said that federal and state governments will step in and cover "bodily injury, sickness, disease or resulting death, property damage and loss as well as reasonable living expenses for individuals evacuated" in the event of a disaster, according to the NRC’s Web site.

Because the losses are covered by the government, homeowner insurance policies won’t cover any of the damages. "All property and liability insurance policies issued in the U.S. exclude nuclear accidents," says the NRC’s site.

If you live within the fallout area of a nuclear power plant and can no longer return home, you’ll have to get in line with everyone else for a government payout, which may or may not cover your needs.

Neither Colbert nor other experts could think of any other industry that enjoys such protection resulting from a failure of its product.

$700 billion debated

Putting a number on a hypothetical scenario such as a full nuclear meltdown in the United States obviously leaves much room for guesswork.

The NRC noted the age of the 1982 Sandia study, suggesting it’s no longer accurate.

The agency is working on a new study, said NRC spokesman Scott Burnell, but that study focuses on health impacts, not property damage.

Still, while a property estimate could not be provided, Burnell said the new models show a release of radiation would be much smaller and happen more slowly, largely thanks to improved understanding of the containment structures and emergency responses at U.S. plants.

Smaller radiation releases "would be expected to have smaller economic effects," said Burnell.

The industry didn’t address the $700 billion estimate directly, but said the $12.6 billion is adequate to cover any foreseen incident.

Colbert, the energy attorney, noted that in the only major disaster at a U.S. nuclear plant, the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, the containment structure generally worked. Not much radiation is thought to have leaked into the atmosphere. The $70 million or so in evacuation, cleanup and other associated costs were easily paid for by the industry’s $12.6 billion fund.

The industry noted the crucial role greenhouse gas-free nuclear power plays in the nation’s energy mix.

"They are generating 20% of the country’s electricity," said Bryant Kinny, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "That’s something we can’t live without."

But with so many major U.S. cities so close to nuclear power plants — New York, Boston, Chicago, Washington D.C. and Philadelphia are all with a 50-mile fallout zone — it’s hard to imagine a major disaster wouldn’t result in damage far exceeding $12 billion.

A 60-mile radius around Chernobyl — the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history — is going to be off-limits for human occupation for hundreds of years. American cities may not need to be abandoned in the event of a metldown, said Frank von Hippel, a noted Princeton nuclear physicist and co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials.

"It might be that people would be willing to live with higher radiation levels in exchange for not moving out," said von Hippel. "Also, more drastic decontamination efforts than we have assumed might be applied."

Still, he said the $720 billion Sandia estimate is "consistent with our calculations, especially if the wind blew toward New York."

March 23, 2011

By Charles Riley, staff reporter
CNNMoney

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Utility company NRG has put the brakes on a plan to build two new nuclear reactors at its South Texas plant, CEO David Crane said Wednesday.

High levels of uncertainty in the aftermath of Japan’s nuclear disasters have led the company to limit work on the project to the licensing and securing of federal loan guarantees, Crane said.

No new nuclear plant has won final approval in the United States since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, although site work is being done at a couple of locations around the country.

Eighty miles southeast of Houston, NRG (NRG, Fortune 500) wants to expand its nuclear facility from two reactors to four — in part with financing from Tokyo Electric Power Company, the owner of the Fukushima Daiichi plant that was heavily damaged in Japan’s earthquake and tsunami.

Tepco holds a 10% stake in the NRG expansion project, with the option to purchase an additional 10% share. A spokesman for NRG confirmed the company has been in touch with Tepco following Japan’s twin natural disasters — but only to offer assistance.

Complicating matters is the industry-wide regulatory review instituted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

"The timing of this from where our project stands could not be more unfortunate," Crane said. "And time can be the biggest enemy for a project like this."

It’s unclear how long the review will take.

"We actually agree that we need the review," Crane said. "But the question is what are we looking at? A three month review or longer?"

Crane said he hopes his plant will be among the first to be given the green light by regulators. He stressed that the proposed reactors will sit 10 miles from the Gulf Coast, in a non-seismic area.

But even seemingly small changes in regulations could kill the project. For instance, NRG’s plan calls for the new reactors to be spaced much further apart than those at Fukushima Daiichi plant. But if regulators demand additional space, it could derail the project, Crane said.

In another blow to the planned expansion, San Antonio power company CPS Energy — which already holds a 7.62% stake in the planned reactors — announced it was indefinitely suspending all discussions about purchasing more power from the plant. However, CPS did not rule out future discussions.

Crane said finding power purchasers will be crucial.

"That was going to be the critical task ahead of us in the second and third quarters," he said, but added that the more immediate concern is getting approval from regulators to build.

For South Texas, there are jobs at stake. (Read what Bay City residents want.)

Less than 20 miles from the NRG plant lies the town of Bay City, where many people work at the power plant and hope an expansion would bring more jobs. The plant itself already employs 1,200 people.

— CNNMoney senior writer Steve Hargreaves contributed to this report.

March 31, 2011

By Dominic Di-Natale
FoxNews.com

Workers at the disaster-stricken Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan say they expect to die from radiation sickness as a result of their efforts to bring the reactors under control, the mother of one of the men tells Fox News.

The so-called Fukushima 50, the team of brave plant workers struggling to prevent a meltdown to four reactors critically damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, are being repeatedly exposed to dangerously high radioactive levels as they attempt to bring vital cooling systems back online.

Speaking tearfully through an interpreter by phone, the mother of a 32-year-old worker said: "My son and his colleagues have discussed it at length and they have committed themselves to die if necessary to save the nation.

"He told me they have accepted they will all probably die from radiation sickness in the short term or cancer in the long-term."

The woman spoke to Fox News on the condition of anonymity because, she said, plant workers had been asked by management not to communicate with the media or share details with family members in order to minimize public panic.

Japan is dealing with a major nuclear crisis following the deadly magnitude 9 earthquake and subsequent tsunami.

She could not confirm if her son or other workers were already suffering from radiation sickness. But she added: "They have concluded between themselves that it is inevitable some of them may die within weeks or months. They know it is impossible for them not to have been exposed to lethal doses of radiation."

The plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (or TEPCO), says medical teams conduct regular testing on the restoration workers for signs of contamination-related illness. It claims there have been no further cases following the three workers who were treated last week after coming into direct contact with radioactive water. There are no reports of new members of the Fukushima 50 developing radiation sickness.

Although two suffered radiation burns to their legs and ankles and absorbed radiation internally, they have since been released from the hospital and are regularly being checked for signs of any deterioration in their condition, says TEPCO.

The company has pledged to improve the tough conditions for workers who stay on the site due to the short turnaround of shifts on safety grounds.

Some restorers directly tackling the problems with the fuel rod containment chambers are limited to 15 minutes at a time inside the reactor buildings or working near highly

radioactive substances, including traces of plutonium that have appeared at numerous locations within the plant complex.

Living conditions for the hundreds of employees staying within the plant’s perimeter to support the restoration efforts are also equally as hazardous, say the authorities.
Banri Kaieda, the interior minister who also acts as a deputy head of the nuclear disaster task force jointly set up by the government and TEPCO, said 500 to 600 people were at one point lodging in a building within the complex. He told a media conference it was "not a situation in which minimum sleep and food could be ensured."

Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency says that workers were only eating two basic meals of crackers and dried rice a day, and sleeping in conference rooms and hallways in the building.

According to Kaieda, not all of the workers had apparently been provided with lead sheeting to shield themselves from potentially radiation-contaminated floors while sleeping.

"My son has been sleeping on a desk because he is afraid to lie on the floor. But they say high radioactivity is everywhere and I think this will not save him," said the mother of the worker who spoke to Fox News.

Meanwhile, bad weather has delayed TEPCO’s plans to limit the spread of radiation from the plant. It has intended to spray a water-soluble resin to affix radioactive particles and substances to the debris sent scattered across the devastated complex to prevent it from being dispersed by wind and moisture.

It will now attempt on Friday test the synthetic solution using remote control vehicles to spray an area of 95,000 square yards at reactors four and six. The company hopes the resin will provide sufficient protection to allow restoration workers better access to areas critical to restoring the reactors’ cooling systems to prevent a meltdown.
Growing pools of dangerously radioactive water and deposits of plutonium have been inhibiting access to important parts of the plant.

A large sea tanker is also being prepared to siphon and ship the water from the plant after it was discovered that run-off containers and drainage tanks were almost full at three of the most critical reactors.

The government says it has yet to be decided where they will dispose of that water.

The No BS Info on Japan’s Disastrous Nuclear Operators

Monday 14 March 2011

by: Greg Palast
TruthOut.org

I need to speak to you, not as a reporter, but in my former capacity as lead investigator in several government nuclear plant fraud and racketeering investigations.

I don’t know the law in Japan, so I can’t tell you if Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) can plead insanity to the homicides about to happen.

But what will Obama plead? The administration, just months ago, asked Congress to provide a $4 billion loan guarantee for two new nuclear reactors to be built and operated on the Gulf Coast of Texas – by TEPCO and local partners. As if the Gulf hasn’t suffered enough. Here are the facts about TEPCO and the industry you haven’t heard on CNN:

The failure of emergency systems at Japan’s nuclear plants comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked in the field.

Nuclear plants the world over must be certified for what is called "SQ" or "Seismic Qualification." That is, the owners swear that all components are designed for the maximum conceivable shaking event, be it from an earthquake or an exploding Christmas card from al-Qaeda.

The most inexpensive way to meet your SQ is to lie. The industry does it all the time. The government team I worked with caught them once, in 1988, at the Shoreham plant in New York. Correcting the SQ problem at Shoreham would have cost a cool billion, so engineers were told to change the tests from "failed" to "passed."

The company that put in the false safety report? Stone & Webster, now the nuclear unit of Shaw Construction, which will work with TEPCO to build the Texas plant. Lord help us.

There’s more.

Last night, I heard CNN reporters repeat the official line that the tsunami disabled the pumps needed to cool the reactors, implying that water unexpectedly got into the diesel generators that run the pumps.

These safety backup systems are the "EDGs" in nuke-speak: Emergency Diesel Generators. That they didn’t work in an emergency is like a fire department telling us they couldn’t save a building because "it was on fire."

What dim bulbs designed this system? One of the reactors dancing with death at Fukushima Station 1 was built by Toshiba. Toshiba was also an architect of the emergency diesel system.

Now be afraid. Obama’s $4 billion bailout in the making is called the South Texas Project. It’s been sold as a red-white-and-blue way to make power domestically with a reactor from Westinghouse, a great American brand. However, the reactor will be made substantially in Japan by the company that bought the US brand name, Westinghouse – Toshiba.

I once had a Toshiba computer. I only had to send it in once for warranty work. However, it’s kind of hard to mail back a reactor with the warranty slip inside the box if the fuel rods are melted and sinking halfway to the earth’s core.

TEPCO and Toshiba don’t know what my son learned in eighth grade science class: tsunamis follow Pacific Rim earthquakes. So, these companies are real stupid, eh? Maybe. More likely is that the diesels and related systems wouldn’t have worked on a fine, dry afternoon.

Back in the day, when we checked the emergency backup diesels in America, a mind-blowing number flunked. At the New York nuclear plant, for example, the builders swore under oath that their three diesel engines were ready for an emergency. They’d been tested. The tests were faked; the diesels run for just a short time at low speed. When the diesels were put through a real test under emergency-like conditions, the crankshaft on the first one snapped in about an hour, then the second and third. We nicknamed the diesels, "Snap, Crackle and Pop."

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(Note: Moments after I wrote that sentence, word came that two of three diesels failed at the Tokai Station as well.)

In the US, we supposedly fixed our diesels after much complaining by the industry. But in Japan, no one tells TEPCO to do anything the Emperor of Electricity doesn’t want to do.

I get lots of confidential notes from nuclear industry insiders. One engineer, a big name in the field, is especially concerned that Obama waved the come-hither check to Toshiba and TEPCO to lure them to America. The US has a long history of whistleblowers willing to put themselves on the line to save the public. In our racketeering case in New York, the government only found out about the seismic test fraud because two courageous engineers, Gordon Dick and John Daly, gave our team the documentary evidence.

In Japan, it’s simply not done. The culture does not allow the salary men, who work all their lives for one company, to drop the dime.

Not that US law is a wondrous shield: both engineers in the New York case were fired and blacklisted by the industry. Nevertheless, the government (local, state, federal) brought civil racketeering charges against the builders. The jury didn’t buy the corporation’s excuses and, in the end, the plant was, thankfully, dismantled.

Am I on some kind of xenophobic anti-Nippon crusade? No. In fact, I’m far more frightened by the American operators in the South Texas nuclear project, especially Shaw. Stone & Webster, now the Shaw nuclear division, was also the firm that conspired to fake the EDG tests in New York . (The company’s other exploits have been exposed by their former consultant, John Perkins, in his book, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.") If the planet wants to shiver, consider this: Toshiba and Shaw have recently signed a deal to become worldwide partners in the construction of nuclear stations.

The other characters involved at the South Texas Plant that Obama is backing should also give you the willies. But as I’m in the middle of investigating the American partners, I’ll save that for another day.

So, if we turned to America’s own nuclear contractors, would we be safe? Well, two of the melting Japanese reactors, including the one whose building blew sky high, were built by General Electric of the Good Old US of A.

After Texas, you’re next. The Obama administration is planning a total of $56 billion in loans for nuclear reactors all over America.

And now, the homicides:

CNN is only interested in body counts, how many workers burnt by radiation, swept away or lost in the explosion. These plants are now releasing radioactive steam into the atmosphere. Be skeptical about the statements that the "levels are not dangerous." These are the same people who said these meltdowns could never happen. Over years, not days, there may be a thousand people, two thousand, ten thousand who will suffer from cancers induced by this radiation.

In my New York investigation, I had the unhappy job of totaling up post-meltdown "morbidity" rates for the county government. It would be irresponsible for me to estimate the number of cancer deaths that will occur from these releases without further information; but it is just plain criminal for the TEPCO shoguns to say that these releases are not dangerous.

Indeed, the fact that residents near the Japanese nuclear plants were not issued iodine pills to keep at the ready shows TEPCO doesn’t care who lives and who dies, whether in Japan or the USA. The carcinogenic isotopes that are released at Fukushima are already floating to Seattle with effects we simply cannot measure.

Heaven help us. Because Obama won’t.

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